How PXT Select™ Can Help Organizations Hire the Right People

Hiring is a little like scouring through Netflix for your next show to binge.

On Netflix, you have so many choices, and the opportunities for entertainment are endless. Recommendations from friends could be too slapstick for your taste, and although some programs might be critically acclaimed, they may not be your style. Make the wrong choice, and you have just wasted hours of scarce leisure time that you will never get back.

Just like trying to find your next Netflix binge, a job opening provides an opportunity where you have to make a choice; oftentimes, a difficult one. However, this is an opportunity for your organization, and for the people you decide to hire. You can add fresh talent, new ideas, and an all new perspective. Despite all the things a new hire may bring, many hiring managers and human resource departments fear the worst-case scenario; the new hire just doesn’t work out.

What do we mean by worst-case scenario? According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the cost of a bad hire is at least 30% of the employee’s first-year earnings.

In the ultra-competitive world of talent selection, these mistakes cost money (often, a significant amount), time, and your business the opportunity to add someone to your team that can get the job done well and get up to speed fast.

We’re in a candidates’ market right now. Employment data says job openings are at a 17-year high and the unemployment rate is at 3.9%. Competition for talent is fierce. So how do you match the opportunity with the talent that is available, and help ensure they stick around?

It comes down to job fit. The right person. In the right role. For the right environment.

It’s finding someone to do the job and allowing their success in the role to drive business results. If you like your job, if you find it challenging, and if you like coming to work, the organization is more likely to succeed. Finding someone’s job fit for a role isn’t about whether the candidate would be fun to have a drink with. Job fit is about how well an individual fits specific jobs in your organization based on the traits that are most important for each of those roles.

The reason data are important is–they can predict the future! Alright maybe that’s a bit hyperbolic, but they can predict behavior to some extent. Candidate data are predictive of how the individual will perform in the job because the numbers are compared against the traits and behaviors that are required to be successful in that job. Precisely how like Netflix predicts uses individualized data to make predictions on which candidates will most likely be a job fit for your organization.

For example, McKinsey & Company, a worldwide consulting firm, was approached by a national sales organization with a talent problem. The organization struggled to keep its pace of growth and still making the right hires. The client wanted a more objective and data-driven approach. McKinsey encouraged the client to start with a clear definition of job performance, by purposefully considering key performance criteria for a variety of roles, in order to avoid costly hiring mistakes. The results from this approach were clear: “The client realized a 40 percent increase in the quality of hires and a 12 percent decrease in first year attrition after they became more thoughtful and data-driven about hiring” McKinsey reported.

In an article published in the MIT Sloan Management Review, authors Stacey Philpot and Kelly Monahan report that 71% of companies aspire toward a more diverse workforce. But only 11% actually have one. They attribute the discrepancy to unconscious bias.

“The shift will require organizations to go beyond providing training that educates employees on their unconscious biases,” the report states. “Employers will also need to establish data-oriented processes for identifying and promoting leaders.”

Using data and science to understand if someone’s personality and traits match the requirements of a job is an absolute imperative. PXT Select can help with that. PXT Select has been offering solutions for companies long before you could stream an entire season of “The Office” in one weekend. Built on 20-plus years of research and rigorous validation, PXT Select offers a simple solution trusted by thousands or organizations worldwide to help them select the right people. When it comes to finding the right hire, we make it easier to “Hire Smarter.” It doesn’t matter if it’s a major corporation or the little shop around the corner, PXT Select helps address your hiring needs to help your organization drive business.

“As the nature of the workplace continues to evolve and the expectations of both employers and candidates start to shift,” Lisa Forrest, Global Head of Internal Talent Acquisition at Alexander Mann Solutions explained to Medium.com, “pre-hire assessments can provide employers with the opportunity to gather detailed information about candidate’s skills-sets, resource requirements, and best-fit characteristics to assist in selecting, and subsequently onboarding, new employees.”

PXT Select uses adaptive testing to offer a personalized assessment experience for candidates, and a personalized interview tailored for hiring managers and future hires. We’ll help you identify and assess what your vision is of your “ideal candidate” based on the competencies most important to you, then create a performance model that defines the characteristics of them to be successful in the role. Finally, we’ll evaluate future candidates against this performance model to find the very best fit for your organization.

It really is an opportunity. And you can’t afford to waste an opportunity. Now, excuse us, we have some binge watching to do.

PXT Select is available through our Authorized Partner network of certified professionals who transform our applications into meaningful solutions that drive business results. Bring the power of PXT Select to your organization. To download the free eBook, visit www.pxtselect.com.